Rom
Rom was the younger son of Keldar and Ishka; his older brother was named Quark. He was employed for several years at "Quark's Place" on Deep Space 9, then becoming an engineer working for the Bajorans, before becoming the Grand Nagus of Ferenginar. Childhood As a child, Rom was always teased for having smaller-than-average lobes than the rest of the boys. Quark was the worst, telling everyone that Rom was adopted. On Rom's Naming Day, Quark substituted his brother's presents with old vegetables, and sold the presents for more than their father had paid for them ( ). When Rom was a child he had a latinum tooth-sharpener. ( ) Family Prinadora In the early-2350s, Rom met his first wife, Prinadora. He signed a standard five-year marriage contract with her father in order to have a child. In 2353, they had their son, Nog. Rom, however, then fell in love with Prinadora and wanted to extend the contract. Unfortunately, he was so in love, that he never bothered to read the extension before signing it. In the end, her father swindled Rom out of all his money, and Prinadora left Rom (and Nog) for a richer man. ( ) This would appear to conflict with Quark's statement in "Fascination" that there is no divorce on Ferenginar. It is possible that, having taken all of Rom's money, Prinadora's father saw fit to marry her off to someone else, as he would have certainly benefitted financially from doing so. Quark Quark exploited and belittled Rom all of his life. Growing up, Quark often teased Rom about his smaller lobes and about supposedly being adopted. He worked in Quark's bar for low wages, and was cheated out of his share of the profits. When Grand Nagus Zek visited Deep Space Nine Quark made Rom give up his quarters for the Nagus. When Zek appointed Quark to be the new Grand Nagus, Rom conspired to kill Quark, and may have succeeded if Zek and Odo hadn't arrived at the last moment. Quark later praised Rom for his treachery. ( ) At first Rom would do whatever Quark demanded. But as time went on, Rom began to resist his brother's demands. Rom would become less afraid of Quark and would confront him over many issues. When Quark dropped Rom's share of the profits from 1/7 to 1/8, Rom left and joined Martus Mazur in opening a rival bar. ( ) He opposed Quark over his treatment of their mother, who against Ferengi law earned profit. He refused to allow Quark to stop his son Nog's admission to Starfleet Academy in late 2371. ( ) The following year, he single-handedly organized a union of Quark's employees after Quark had cut their wages. He defied his brother and Liquidator Brunt, who the Ferengi Commerce Authority had sent to resolve the situation. After the wages had been restored, Rom made the final break with his brother. Rom joined the maintenance crew on Deep Space Nine. But through out all the conflicts with his brother, he and Quark loved each other very much. This was evident when he became jealous of Quark's relationship with Pel. Rom would expose "him" as a female during a visit by Grand Nagus Zek in 2370. ( ) And for his part Quark would always take care of Rom if he was in need. Quark had always remained neutral in conflicts from the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor, to the retaking of Deep Space Nine by the Cardassians. When Rom was arrested for sabotage and sentenced to death, Quark would risk his life and save Rom. They had many adventures together and many opportunties at profit. Ishka Rom's mother, Ishka, loved Rom very much and protected him. She felt he was a good man, unsuccessful in commercial ventures, but with a good heart. Rom and Ishka were very close when he was a child, and they remained close when Rom moved away from Ferenginar. Rom never quarreled with her over her lifestyle, nor resented her for earning more profit than him. Ishka was his "Moogie." He would support her against both Quark and the Ferengi Commerce Authority. ( ) Rom was part of the team that rescued Ishka from the Dominion. The Dominion agreed to a prisoner exchange, Ishka for the Vorta Keevan. Empok Nor was the site for the prisoner exchange. After a battle with the Jem'Hadar, Ishka was rescued. ( ) Ishka probably influenced Zek in naming Rom his successor as the new Nagus. ( ) Nog ]] Rom had a good relationship with his son Nog, although there were times that they did not see eye to eye. Although Nog told his father several times he could do better, Rom always dreamed of taking over the bar from Quark. Nog wanted to pursue career opportunities of a non traditional Ferengi nature. Rom strongly disapproved and even attempted to prevent Nog from learning to read English or attend Keiko O'Brien's school on the station. But he changed his mind and allowed (forcefully) Nog to attend the school. ( ) Over the years Rom's attitudes softened and he encouraged his son in his goals. His ambition for his son grew to the point where he felt directly invested. When Nog wished to apply for Starfleet, Rom encouraged him, saying that he would be proud to have a son in Starfleet ( ). Quark, however, remained opposed to the idea. When Rom discovered that Quark had altered the settings of the holosuite to distort the results of one of the exams so that Nog would fail, he reported the incident to Captain Sisko who let Nog re-take the exam and threatened to destroy Quark's bar should his brother interfere again. ( ) When his son became a cadet, Rom was extremely proud although he always worried about Nog and the dangers he faced. Nog would join Rom in rescuing Ishka from the Dominion. He would have to deal with Nog's depression after his son was wounded in a battle with the Dominion and lost a leg. Rom opposed the idea that Nog would recuperate in the Vic Fontaine holoprogram. ( ) Leeta ]] In 2373, Rom fell in love with Leeta, one of the Bajorans who worked as a dabo girl at "Quark's Place". Leeta admitted to having a crush on him to her ex-boyfriend, Julian Bashir. ( ) Despite constantly planning to do so, Rom could never worked up the courage to ask Leeta out. When Doctor Lewis Zimmerman visited the station to work with Doctor Bashir, he fell in love with Leeta. She was going to leave with him and they planned to live together, Zimmerman offering to let her open a restaurant on Jupiter Station. Just as she was boarding a ship, Rom stopped her and confessed his love for her. Leeta admitted that she was in love with Rom and remained. ( ) Rom learned about Bajoran customs to please Leeta, but demanded that Leeta sign the Ferengi equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement. Rom and Leeta broke up over the demand and that made Rom miserable. He decided to give his latinum to the Bajoran War Orphans Fund so that the pre-nuptial agreement was no longer necessary and he and Leeta made up. ( ) The two were married in late 2373 in a ceremony officiated by Benjamin Sisko. ( ) Deep Space 9 Rom was employed at "Quark's Place" aboard Deep Space 9, holding several positions such as server and pit-boss, before being "promoted" to Assistant Manager for Policy and Clientele. He and his brother Quark had an odd relationship. Quark at times would treat him like a servant, many times swindle him out of latinum. Other times he would take care of him, and provide him with whatever he needed. Rom was very loyal to Quark and would do anything Quark asked. ( ) When the Grand Nagus Zek visited the station he admonished Rom for sending Nog to school and told him to stop it. Zek made Quark the new nagus so he could retire. Shortly after this, he died. Rom wanted Quark's bar, but instead Quark appointed Rom as his bodyguard. Rom still wanted the bar, but Quark refused, and Rom along with Krax, Zek's son, decided to kill Quark. Rom escorted him to an air lock but instead of a ship waiting, there was empty space. Just before Quark would have been ejected into space Zek appeared and stated that he faked his death to test his son's worthiness to be nagus which he failed. Quark congratulated Rom on his treachery, since this made him a true Ferengi. ( ) After Quark was appointed to open trade negotiation with the Gamma Quadrant, Rom became jealous of a Ferengi named Pel who became Quark's right hand man in the negotiations. Rom exposed her as a female which got Quark in trouble. ( ) After the attempted murder of his brother, Rom briefly became a suspect. When the murderer tried to kill Quark again in the hospital, Rom was able to save him. ( ) He opposed his brother during the crisis their mother caused when she earned profit. Quark wanted Ishka to return all the profits, or he would have to and be ruined. When they stopped talking to each other, Rom arranged a meeting, and they resolved the issue. Ishka signed a confession and returned the profits. But she hid two-thirds of the profits with Rom's help. ( ) When Zek rewrote the Rules of Acquisition in an attempt to end the Ferengi greed creed, Rom and Quark found out that the Prophets had tampered with Zek's greedy ways when he visited the wormhole because Zek wanted to see if he could use the Prophets for profit. They were so shocked at his attitude that they turned him into a kinder Zek. Rom and Quark took him back to the wormhole and asked that the materialistic Zek be returned and promise that the Ferengi would no longer bother the Prophets. ( ) In 2372 a mishap on their ship sent Rom and Quark back to Earth in 1947. This became known as the Roswell Incident. They were mistaken for invaders and were almost dissected by the military. They escaped with the help of Earth scientists and returned to their own time. ( ) A New Career Rom became sick due to being overworked. He became angry at the working conditions in Quark's Bar, and formed a Bar Association. Brunt arrived at the station and threatened Rom, when this failed he had Quark beaten and threatened to kill him. Rom ended the strike when Quark secretly agreed to his demands. He followed this up with an application to join the Deep Space Nine Crew and joined Chief O'Brien's maintance team, initially working in waste extraction. ( ) Rom recalibrated the deflector beam at O'Brien's request. O'Brien was ordered to do this by a Pah-wraith who had taken over Keiko's body and had threatened to kill her. Rom informed O'Brien that the recalibration would send the deflector beam into the wormhole and kill the aliens inside it. O'Brien was able to rig the beam to hit the alien and save Keiko. As Rom kept O'Brien's secret safe until Keiko was no longer in danger, this endeared Rom to O'Brien who promoted him. ( ). He was further promoted to Maintenance Engineer 1st Class in mid-2375. ( ) Rom would be invited to join Captain Sisko's baseball team that was going to play against a Vulcan Team coached by Solok, a rival of Sisko's since their academy days. Rom couldn't hit a ball, and wasn't good at catching either. Sisko cut him from the team. Later Sisko felt bad and in the last inning with Nog on third, the team losing 10 to 0, Sisko sent Rom to bat. Rom missed the first two pitches. On the third pitch as Rom leaned forward to try to see what the coach wanted him to do, he accidently hit the ball. It rolled down the first base line and Nog slid into home scoring his teams only run. The team rushed the field and lifted Rom up as the hero of the Game. ( ) Dominion War Rom played an important role in the war against the Dominion, coming up with the idea of self-replicating mines to block the Bajoran wormhole, stopping the Dominion from being reinforced from the Gamma Quadrant. When the Dominion captured Deep Space 9, he remained on board as a "spy" for the Federation, and reassuming his title of "Assistant Manager for Policy and Clientele". ( ) During the Cardassian takeover of DS9, he was part of Kira's resistance cell against the Dominion. He helped cause dissension between the Dominion and Cardassians. After learning that Gul Dukat was going to use the deflector to disable the replicating mines, he tried to disable the deflector array, but was caught. He was sentenced to death by Gul Dukat for his actions, but was rescued by Quark and Tora Ziyal. He would fail to disable the deflector array, but would disable the station's weapons systems. The loss of the weapons systems left the Dominion-held station vulnerable after the loss of their reinforcements, allowing the Federation/Klingon task force to recapture the station easily. ( ) Several weeks later, when his mother was captured by the Dominion, Rom was part of the Ferengi group that travelled to Empok Nor to exchange her for Keevan. ( ) Becoming Nagus A series of events through the years all contributed to Rom's elevation to Nagus. In 2375, Rom would eventually become Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance. At first Nagus Zek would ignore Rom, believing him to be of poor business sense and not very intelligent. Zek disagreed strongly with many of Rom's choices concerning his son Nog. Zek did not like the idea of Nog attending a human school, and was opposed to Nog entering Starfleet. But events and Ishka would influence the improvement of Zek's attitude toward Rom. ( ) Rom would help restore the Nagus to the Ferengi ways, after the Nagus had been influenced by the wormhole aliens. He along with Quark took the Nagus back to the wormhole and was successful in persuading them to restore Zek back to his old self. He would help restore Zek as the Grand Nagus after Brunt had deposed him. ( ) He and Quark would enter into the mirror universe and save Zek from the Alliance. They would help the ''Defiant'' in capturing the Regent, after disabling his weapon systems. They would also kill mirror Garak who was going to kill them, although Rom was shocked at Leeta's counterpart offering to 'debrief' Ezri's counterpart following her defection. Rom's counterpart in the mirror universe had been killed by the Alliance. ( ) When Ishka became Zek's companion, she influenced him in trying to turn the Ferengi society into a more tolerant one, that allowed free commerce and woman's rights. Her influence over Zek led to social reform and a Ferenginar that has instituted democratic changes. Rom became the perfect choice for Nagus because he himself had never been a traditional Ferengi. Zek believed that he would be an excellent successor for the newly reformed Ferenginar. ( ) Apocrypha In the Deep Space Nine relaunch novels, Rom and Leeta went on to have a daughter, who they named Bena, both for the Bajoran word for 'joy', and after Benjamin Sisko for all he had done for them. Ironically, as Quark pointed out, the word 'bena', in Ferengi, meant "underflooring". Appearances * DS9: ** (as Ferengi Pit Boss) ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Category:Ferengi Category:Bajoran Militia personnel Category:Deep Space 9 personnel Category:Terok Nor residents de:Rom es:Rom fr:Rom